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More than a twelve months following the vote that delivered Donald Trump a clear-cut return victory, the Democratic party has still not released its election autopsy. But, recently, an prominent progressive lobby group published its own. The Harris campaign, its authors contended, failed to connect with key voter blocs because it did not focus enough on tackling basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the threat to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives overlooked the kitchen-table concerns that were uppermost in many people’s minds.

A Lesson for European Capitals

As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics from now until the end of the decade, that is a lesson that must be fully absorbed in European capitals. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will quickly replicate Mr Trump’s success. Within Europe's Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of blue-collar voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is difficult to see a response that is sufficient to troubling times.

Era-Defining Problems and Expensive Solutions

The challenges Europe faces are costly and era-defining. They include the war in Ukraine, sustaining the momentum of the green transition, addressing demographic change and developing economies that are less vulnerable to pressure by Mr Trump and China. According to a Brussels-based thinktank, the new age of global instability could require an additional €250bn in annual EU defence spending. A significant study last year on European economic competitiveness demanded substantial investment in shared infrastructure, to be financed in part by jointly held EU debt.

Such a fiscal paradigm shift would stimulate growth figures that have stagnated for years.

But, at both the EU-wide and national levels, there remains a lack of boldness when it comes to revenue raising. The EU’s so-called “budget hawks resist the idea of shared debt, and Brussels’ budget proposals for the next seven years are deeply timid. In France, the idea of a wealth tax is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Yet the beleaguered centrist government – while desperate to cut its budget deficit – refuses to contemplate such a move.

The Cost of Political Paralysis

The truth is that in the absence of such measures, the less well-off will pay the price of financial adjustment through spending cuts and greater inequality. Bitter recent conflicts over retirement reforms in both France and Germany highlight a developing struggle over the future of the European social model – a trend that the RN and the AfD have happily exploited to promote a politics of welfare chauvinism. Ms Le Pen’s party, for example, has resisted moves to raise the retirement age and has said that it would focus any benefit cuts at non-French nationals.

Preventing a Strategic Advantage for Nationalists

Across the Atlantic, Mr Trump’s pledges to protect working-class interests were largely insincere, as subsequent Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy underlined. Yet without a convincing progressive counteroffer from the Harris campaign, they proved effective on the campaign trail. Without a fundamental change in economic approach, societal agreements across the continent risk being ripped up. Policymakers must steer clear of handing this electoral boon to the Trumpian forces already on the march in Europe.